Study ties toughness of judges to politics

GOP, Democrat jurists vary on type of crime

February 07, 2006|By Michael Higgins, Tribune staff reporter

Federal judges appointed by Republicans give tougher sentences on street crime, two Northwestern University legal scholars say, while Democratic appointees take a stricter view of white-collar offenses.

In a study of 365,000 sentences meted out between 1992 and 2001, the Republican appointees appeared to give about 10 percent more prison time for violent crimes, drug offenses and theft.

Democrat-appointed judges appeared to view white-collar crimes as more serious, though the scholars said it was unclear whether that translated into longer prison terms.

The study by Northwestern School of Law professors Emerson Tiller and Max Schanzenbach will be published in the Journal of Law, Economics & Organization in 2007, according to the university, which plans to release the study Tuesday.

"The political orientation of the judge matters with respect to street crimes," Tiller and Schanzenbach wrote. "Sentence lengths for street crimes are between 7 and 9 months lower for Democrat-appointed judges."

Democrat-appointed judges tend to assign white-collar criminals higher "offense levels"--scores that reflect the seriousness of the crime--though the scholars said they couldn't detect any difference in prison terms due to statistical issues.

"In a nutshell, Schanzenbach and I found that judges can manipulate their interpretation of facts during sentencing hearings," Tiller said.

Because sentencing information was not available for individual judges, Tiller and Schanzenbach had to extrapolate from the body of decisions that came from each federal district while considering the political make-up of that district.

The study is one of the first to examine party affiliation in the federal trial courts, experts said Monday. It also comes on the heels of a U.S. Supreme Court decision de-emphasizing sentencing guidelines and giving judges more discretion.

Party affiliation for judges is a "hot area of academic research," but most studies focus on appeals courts, said Kate Stith said, a Yale Law School professor. Stith said had not reviewed the study.